My Favorite Things

This week I have transmitted my love of sharks, angel hair pasta, and tarot cards to my children. It’s amazing to see how excited they get about the things that make me excited. It makes me feel like I can fill them up with whatever I want them to appreciate, but it also makes me feel like there’s an enormous responsibility here, to fill them up with equal parts of all things, so that they will find their own way, and learn to appreciate the things I myself don’t get particularly excited about. But then again, they are most excited by anything and everything princess-related, and I’ve never had a moment of adoration for that stuff, so maybe I’m already off the hook.

Halloween

So, the princesses were sick, but they were still beautiful. One Snow White with a deep cough and one Cinderella with a low-grade fever made the rounds around our neighborhood, collecting candy and admiring decorations, getting cooed over by the neighbors we know best, and getting special treats designated just for them. We headed down the street, and by the fifth house they had a system down. String Bean would ring the doorbell, and when it opened, Peanut would lead the chorus of saying “trick or treat!” It’s the first year that they jumped right in without much shyness, especially Peanut. As soon as the candy dropped into her bucket, she’d spin on a sparkly heel and say, “Let’s go to the next house!”

We were planning on a brief outing this year, not only because the kids were sick, but also because they were looking forward to being back home in time to give out candy to other kids. After maybe a dozen houses, the little princess buckets they were collecting candy in were totally full (who knew people were so generous with three- and four-year-olds, some giving four or five pieces of candy each), so we headed home. String Bean was done by then, feeling tired and ready to settle down to eat some candy and wait in the front window, watching for kids coming to our house, so she could race excitedly to open the door and dump huge handfuls of candy into their bags. But Peanut, who really got Halloween for the first time this year, and was no longer frightened by the scarier decorations, wasn’t done. So String Bean stayed home with me while Peanut went out on another round with her grandma. I’m happy to have another Halloween enthusiast in the family.

Story-Telling Girl

String Bean, in addition to her general obsession with princesses, has developed a fascination with fairy tales. She has the standard Disney fairy tale collection, and a Barbie fairy tale book and movie, but her favorite fairy tales are the ones she makes up herself, starring herself and her sister, often with her step-cousin and the neighbor boy playing roles as princes.

She’s given up having me read bedtime stories from books, instead preferring that we take turns telling each other stories about these two princess sisters and their adventures in a kingdom where mystical, magical things happen every day. We’ve had stories about magical fish in a lake behind the castle, that cast rainbows as they jump out of the water, talking unicorns that invite the girls to a hidden orchard for the best fruit ever, and castle balls where everyone dances until an evil witch comes to break up the party, is defeated by the princesses and their princes, who then become engaged and life happily ever after.

As a story teller myself, I probably don’t have to tell you how much I adore this new side of her always active imagination. Watching her string together words, images, and concepts, her eyes wide with amazement at her own story’s development, I can plainly see myself as a young girl, developing this same fascination at a similar age.